Do you prefer Pixelmator or Photoshop?

I'm about to subscribe to the CC plan for LR which includes PS. I've never used PS, but have used Pixelmator for about a year for some light editing (removing objects and fix blemishes) and some light icon design.

Is PS really that much more powerful than Pixelmator? Is it worth installing? Which do you prefer to work in?

PS, a second hands down. I did buy and try Pixelmator and it's nice for casual work (for me).

The dark horse that I'm really liking is the beta of Affinity Photo - the dev's Affinity Designer hasn't fully replaced Illy in my toolbox but I'm really liking Affinity's products. The second beta of Affinity Photo has me reaching for that app more often.

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PS, a second hands down. I did buy and try Pixelmator and it's nice for casual work (for me).

The dark horse that I'm really liking is the beta of Affinity Photo - the dev's Affinity Designer hasn't fully replaced Illy in my toolbox but I'm really liking Affinity's products. The second beta of Affinity Photo has me reaching for that app more often.

I've heard nothing but positive things for Affinity Photo but again, I'm paying a monthly fee for the right to use LightRoom and PS. I don't think Affinity Photo as the DAM capability that I need, so I've largely looked past it. I'm paying the 10 bucks a month because I want Lightroom, PS is just a bonus. I use it because I can. I do find it easier to things in PS since I'm more used to the UI then Pixelmator's though I will say that Pixelmator's UI is a lot cleaner and better.

I've used Photoshop for over 15 years, but as soon as they went to the cloud model license I purchased Pixelmator and Sketch and have started using them for work. Took a bit of time to get used to, but the workflow is almost as good and I don't have to worry about PS commercial licensing.

Affinity is also pretty awesome, I've only played with it for about 10 minutes, but I like what it has to offer.

Is PS really that much more powerful than Pixelmator? Is it worth installing? Which do you prefer to work in?

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Yes - I want to like Pixelmator (and dump Adobe), and it is excellent value (I bought it when it was on offer) but even the cut-down PS Elements* is more powerful than Pixelmator in some ways.

For example - I often find myself wanting to take a PDF file, render it as a bitmap then reduce it save it out as a PNG thumbnail for the web.

Yes, Pixelmator will open a PDF, render the first page to a bitmap, allow me to resize it then export it as a PNG.

However, if I do it in PS - first, I get to choose which page of a multi-page PDF to render, and I can choose the colour format, height width and PPI of the render. Then, there's a really nifty 'save to web' tool that lets me choose the bit depth, transparency options, palette options and the target size, gives a preview of the result and the file size of the result - all without changing the original, so I can easily output several sizes of bitmap if I want. Pixelmator just doesn't offer this control (or if it does, I haven't discovered it).

(*I have PS Elements 11 - I haven't tried the newer versions, hopefully they haven't suffered too much from the dumbing down trend)

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